Page 49 of Bloom in Darkness

“Wasn’t planning to.” His chest moves beneath mine when he chuckles, and he turns his head toward the kitchen. “Bryn, you’ll have to feed us. I’m not allowed to move.”

A deep purr starts somewhere behind me. By the time Bryn walks back into the room, the vibration has filled the space around us. I lift my head and stare at the plate in his hands, full of strawberries, melon, and grapes cut small enough to eat without moving from Caelan’s lap. My eyes sting again, and I press my mouth briefly against Caelan’s shoulder until it passes.

“The diner is bringing food in forty-five minutes,” Bryn says. He sits on the edge of the coffee table and picks up a strawberry, holding it toward my mouth without hesitation.

I look at the berry, then at him. “You know Caelan was joking when he told you to feed us.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Caelan says from beneath me, tightening his arms around my hips.

Bryn’s purr deepens as he keeps the berry poised near my mouth. “Doesn’t matter.”

I open my mouth and let him feed me the strawberry. Juice catches at the corner of my lip, and Bryn wipes it away with his thumb before reaching for another piece of fruit.

Caelan rests his chin briefly against my shoulder. “See? Let him take care of us, Astra. He loves it.”

I look at Bryn, at the plate he put together while I was falling apart over a broken mug, at the way he waits with the next berry balanced between his fingers and makes no move to hurry me. “Okay,” I say when he holds it out, and this time I take it without arguing.

Astra

Bryn has looked at my feet six times in the last five minutes. I’m at the kitchen island in the thick wool socks he insisted on finding for me, holding a glass of water while warm afternoon light stretches across the hardwood, and every time I shift on the stool his gaze drops like the floor might have grown another piece of broken ceramic.

At first I pretend I don't notice. It's easier than arguing with a man who has already swept the kitchen three times and checked beneath the cabinets with a flashlight like a shard of ceramic might have crawled under there on purpose, but when I shift on the stool and his gaze drops immediately, I look down at my own feet and then back at him. Caelan’s stretched along the sofa with a book open against his chest, one ankle resting over the other. After another minute of Bryn tracking me instead of whatever he's pretending to do in the kitchen, Caelan lowers the book and says, "If you keep staring at his feet, he's going to start charging you."

Bryn doesn’t look embarrassed; if anything, he looks mildly irritated that the rest of us aren’t taking the threat seriously enough. “I’m making sure he’s not bleeding.”

Caelan lowers the book another inch. “He’s wearing socks, Bryn. You’ve already swept the floor three times.”

"Four times," I add, because accuracy matters. I laugh when Bryn finally looks at me, and his shoulders loosen against the counter.

Nobody’s mentioned the mug since breakfast. Nobody’s asked what it cost, nobody’s treated me like I might shatter if they say the wrong thing, and the whole house has moved on as if the only part of the morning worth remembering was the cut on my heel. I take another deliberate drink and set the glass down carefully before telling Bryn, "You can stop monitoring me. I survived the water."

Bryn looks at my feet one last time before meeting my eyes. "I know. I'm adjusting," he says, and the answer takes whatever argument I had ready and leaves me with nothing useful to say.

The house settles again after that. Bryn puts away dishes even though the dishwasher is already running, Caelan returns to his book, and I sit at the island doing absolutely nothing for several minutes, which turns out to be harder than it should be because my eyes keep finding the clock above the stove. Noon has already passed, and there's no schedule taped to the wall telling me what comes next. Nobody asks when I'm leaving, nobody reminds me about work, and even thinking about my next shift feels strangely far away from this room.

Caelan notices me looking at the clock and closes the book around one finger to hold his place. “Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

“No.” I rub my thumb over the condensation on my glass, because somehow the answer feels more dangerous than it should.

“Then why do you keep checking the time?” Caelan keeps one finger tucked between the pages instead of reopening the book. I look at the clock again before forcing my attention back to him.

“That's the problem. I usually know what I'm supposed to be doing.” I count it off against the side of my glass without meaning to. “Work, laundry, groceries, sleep before work. If I have a few hours left over, I usually waste them worrying about whatever comes next.”

Bryn dries his hands and comes to the other side of the island, leaving the counter between us. “What do you do when you’re not working?”

My eyes go to the bag beside my stool. “I draw.”

Caelan follows my gaze to the sketchbook tucked inside. “You brought it.”

“I bring it everywhere.” I hook one foot around the strap and pull the bag closer.

Caelan nods toward it. “Then use it if you want to.” He opens his book again.

Bryn stays on the other side of the island. He doesn’t reach for the bag or tell me what to do with it, and after another second I pull it into my lap.

The sketchbook has softened at the corners from years of being shoved into bags and dresser drawers. I flip past old figure studies, half-finished hands, and quick faces from trains and dressing rooms until I find a clean page, then look up to find Bryn still leaning against the counter, weight settled back on one hip with his dark hair falling over his forehead.

He catches me studying him and raises his brows, so I point the charcoal at him before he can move. “Stay where you are.” His other brow lifts, but he settles back against the counter and lets me look.